


A Gun of One's Own

by BlueFloyd



Category: 19th Century CE RPF, 20th Century CE RPF, A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf, Historical RPF
Genre: Alternate History, Gen, Wild West Woolf!, fictional biography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28998915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueFloyd/pseuds/BlueFloyd
Summary: But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and politics – what has that got to do with a gun of one’s own? I will try to explain.
Kudos: 2





	A Gun of One's Own

_Virginia Stephen-Woolf is one of the most important figures of American politics at the turn of the century. Born in London in 1882, she moved to the United States in 1899, after falling out with her family following the death of her mother in 1895 and her sister Stella in 1897. The early years of Woolf on American soil are poorly documented, but the following is known. She met several figures of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, but found them too mild. She then interacted with several radical political organizations on the East Coast, before moving West at some point. She resurfaced in 1905 as an occasional spokesperson of the Calamities, a group of vigilante women operating in the territory of Oklahoma, fighting for social justice, land redistribution and women rights. After the Calamities were forced to disband due to the Federal Government crackdown, Woolf moved to Arizona, where the members of the Calamities joined forces with the local chapter of the Silent Sentinels, the controversial radical feminist organization known for its threatening motto "Equal Rights or Else…". Woolf worked again in quality of spokesperson of the movement, moving between New York, DC and Phoenix to represent the interests of the Silent Sentinels and of the larger suffragette movements. Her position made her "the most hated woman in America", and she was arrested several times, but her public appearances gave her an alibi for most of the actions for which the Silent Sentinels faced prosecution. The assassination attempt she barely survived in 1909 turned the public opinion in her favor. The public will keep supporting her even once her participation in the Phoenix Riots had been proven by the BOI. She was issued an amnesty by president Bill Bryan, so that she could act as an emissary of the Gunslingeresses Commune to the Government of the United States of America. The negotiations between the two parties and Woolf diplomatic abilities led to the foundation of the State of Dalloway in place of the territory of Arizona, and the amnesty of all Silent Sentinels who participated in the Phoenix Riots, with the exception of Alice Paul and Louise Michel. The influence of Dalloway on American politics led to the national adoption of women suffrage in the USA in 1913._

_We reproduce below, with the amiable authorization of the Dalloway State Library, the opening lines of Virginia Stephen-Woolf's speech for her swearing in as the fourth Governess of Dalloway in 1934, familiarly known as the "Gun Of One's Own speech", or "the greatest incipit ever delivered in American politics"._

But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and politics – what has that got to do with a gun of one’s own? I will try to explain. When you asked me to speak about women and politics I sat down on the steps of Orlando's Capitol and began to wonder what the words meant. They might mean simply a few remarks about Lysistrata; a few more about Olympe de Gouges; a tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft and a recounting of some Women's Social and Political Union meetings; some witticisms if possible about Suffrajitsu and one would have done.

But at second sight the words seemed not so simple. The title women and politics might mean, and you may have meant it to mean, women and what they are like; or it might mean women and the politics that they conduct; or it might mean women and the politics that for so long was conducted about them but without them. Or it might mean that somehow all three are inextricably mixed together and you want me to consider them in that light, But when I began to consider the subject in this last way, which seemed the most interesting, I soon saw that it had one fatal drawback. I should never be able to come to a conclusion. I should never be able to fulfill what is, I understand, the first duty of a lecturer – to hand you after an hour’s discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece for ever. All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point – a woman must have firearm practice and a gun of her own if she is to assert her political views; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of politics unsolved. I have shirked the duty of coming to a conclusion upon these two questions – women and politics remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems.

But in order to make some amends I am going to do what I can to show you how I arrived at this opinion about the gun and the practice. I am going to develop in your presence as fully and freely as I can the turns of my life which led me to think this. Perhaps if I lay bare the events, the prejudices, that lie behind this statement you will find that they have some bearing upon women and some upon politics. At any rate, when a subject is highly controversial – and any question about sex is that – one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one’s audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker. The recounting of one's life here is likely to contain more truth than carefully crafted essays. Therefore I propose, making use of all the liberties and licenses of a self-biographer, to tell you the story of the two decades that preceded my coming here – how, bowed down by the weight of the expectations which the English society had laid upon my shoulders, I escaped it and found my own way in the wilderness of the unincorporated territories of the United States, where I took some part in the events which led to the formation of the State of Dalloway. I need not say that what I am about to describe has been in part obscured and redacted. Calamity Jane was a nickname claimed by several gunslingeresses. The events that occurred during the Phoenix riots are still a a sensitive matter and subject to an inquiry led by the Bureau of Investigation ; If I have personally been granted a Presidential Pardon, I do not wish in any way to incriminate my fellow freedom fighteresses. ‘I’ is only a convenient term for somebody who has no real being. Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them; it is for you to seek out this truth and to decide whether any part of it is worth keeping. If not, you will of course throw the whole of it into the waste-paper basket and forget all about it.

**Author's Note:**

> The Frontier era was already coming to an end when Woolf was born. The story as I imagined it could happen with Woolf departure for the US as the original POD, but it would work better with an earlier POD, maybe something along the lines of a slightly longer Civil War, slowing the colonization of the Territories.
> 
> The existence of a feminist-founded State in the US would of course raise many interesting question: the relation between this State and the Federal Governement on the long term. If Dalloway has a tradition of Governess, could we hope for a woman in the White House a tad earlier, or would there be a backlash on Federal level?  
> Also, given that Dalloway would be situated where Arizona stands in OOT, what would be the relationship between the Dalloway State and Native Americans?  
> And finally, wouldn't this very famous speech by Woolf be gladly endorsed by the NRA or other unsavory "gun rights activists" ?


End file.
